Wild Bill's Last Trail Part 16

At this same hour, a man rode into the edge of the town on a n.o.ble black horse, leading a tired mustang. Both of these animals he staked out in a patch of gra.s.s, leaving the saddles on, and the bridles hanging to the saddle-bow of each. Then he placed his rifle against a tree near by, took the old cartridges out of a six-shooter and put in fresh ones. This done with the greatest deliberation, he pulled his slouch hat well over his face, entered the nearest saloon, threw down a silver dollar, and called for brandy.

A bottle and gla.s.s were set before him. He filled the gla.s.s to the brim, drank it off, and walked out.

"Here, you red-haired cuss, here!" cried the bar-keeper. "Here's a half comin' to you; we only charge half-price when it goes by wholesale!"

The joke fell useless, for the red-haired man had not remained to hear it.

In the largest hall in the place, a heavy gambling game was going on.

There was roulette, faro, and monte, all at different points.

Before the faro-table there was the greatest gathering.

Wild Bill, furnished with money by the person known to us so far as Willie Pond, was "bucking against the bank" with, his usual wonderful luck, and the crowd centered around him as a character more noted and better known than any other who had yet come to Deadwood.

"I'll bet my whole pile on the jack!" shouted Wild Bill, who had taken enough strong drink to fit him for anything.

"Do be careful, Bill--do be careful!" said a low, kind voice just behind him.

It was that of Willie Pond.

"Oh, go home and mind your business. I'll break this bank to-night, or die in the trial!" cried Bill, defiantly.

"You'll die before you break it!" shrieked out a shrill, sharp voice, and the red-haired Texan sprang forward with an uplifted bowie-knife, and lunged with deadly aim at Bill's heart, even as the person we have so long known as Willie Pond shrieked out:

"Save, oh, save my husband!"

But another hand clutched the hilt of the descending knife and the hand of a short, thickset, beetle-browed desperado, was shouted, as he drew a pistol with his other hand:

"Wild Bill is my game. No one living shall cheat me of my revenge! Look at this scar, Bill--you marked me for _life_ and now I mark you for _death!_"

And even as he spoke, the man fired, and a death-shot pierced Wild Bill's heart.

The latter, who had risen to his feet, staggered toward the Texan, who struggled to free his knife-hand from the clutch of the real a.s.sa.s.sin, and with a wild laugh, tore the false hair from the Texan's head. As a roll of woman's hair came down in a flood of beauty over her shoulders, Bill gasped out:

"Jack McCall, I'm thankful to you, even though you've killed me. Wild Bill does not die by the hand of a _woman!"_

A shudder, and all was over, so far as Wild Bill's life went.

His real and true wife wept in silence over his body, while sullen, and for a time silent, the supposed Texan stood and gazed at the dead body.

Then she spoke, addressing McCall:

"Villain, you have robbed me of my revenge! for by my hand should that man have fallen. No wrong he could have done you can be more bitter than that which put me on his death-trail, and made me swear to take his life.

"Two years ago a young man left a ranch close to the Rio Grande border with a thousand head of cattle, which had been bought from him, to be paid for when delivered in Abilene, Kansas. He was n.o.ble, brave, handsome. He was good and true in all things. He was the only hope of a widowed mother, the very idol of a loving sister, whose life seemed linked with his. He promised when he left those he loved and who so loved him that he would hasten back with the proceeds of the sale, and then, with his mother and sister, he would return to the birthplace of the three, to the old Northern homestead, where his father's remains were buried, buy the old estate, and settle down to a quiet and a happy life. Long, anxiously, and prayerfully did that mother and sister wait for his return. Did he come? No; but the soul-blighting news came, which, like a thunderbolt, struck that mother--my mother--dead! Wild and despairing, I heard it--heard _this._

"The son, the brother, who never used a drop of strong drink in all his life; who never uttered an oath, or raised a hand in unkindness to man or woman, had been murdered--killed without provocation--no chance to defend his life, no warning to prepare for another world--shot down in mere wantonness. There lies the body of him who did it. Do you wonder that, over my dead mother's body, girl though I was, I swore to follow to the death him who killed my brother? It is not my fault that I have not kept my oath. I would have done it had I known that you, his friends, would have torn me limb from limb before his body was cold."

"And served him right!" said an old miner, whose eyes were dimmed with moisture while the Texan girl told her story.

"Where is McCall? His act was murder," cried Sam Chichester.

"He has sloped, but I'll take his trail, and if there is law in Montana he shall hang," said California Joe, who bounded from the house, when it was discovered that the murderer had slipped away in the moment of excitement.

How well California Joe kept his promise, history has already recorded.

Followed over many a weary mile of hill and prairie, McCall was finally arrested, tried and convicted, as well by his own boast as the evidence of others, and he was hanged.

But one glance at our heroine, for such the red-haired Texan is.

With a look of haughty defiance, she asked:

"Have I done aught that requires my detention here?"

"No," said Captain Jack; "thank Heaven you have not. We'd make a poor fist at trying a woman by Lynch law, if you had done what you meant to."

"Then I go, and few will be the white faces I ever see again!" she cried.

The next moment she pa.s.sed out, and as the crowd followed to see whither she went, she was seen to spring on a coal-black horse which stood unhitched before the door, and on it she rode at wild speed away toward the north-west, while a saddled but unridden mustang followed close behind her.

The course she took led toward the regions where Sitting Bull, in force, awaited the attack of the soldiers then on his trail.

[THE END.]